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REMARKS OF REV. MOSES STUART, 



Late of Andover Theological Seminary, 



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II EXAMINATION OF HIS SCRIPTURAL EXEGESIS, 



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WILLIAM JAY. 



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REPLY 

TO 

REMARKS OF REV. MOSES STUART, 

Lately a Professor in the Theological Seminary at Andover, 
ON 

HON. JOHN JAY, 

AND AN 

EXAMINATION OF HIS SCRIPTURAL EXEGESIS. 

CONTAINED IN HIS RECENT PAMPHLET 

ENTITLED, 

"CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION:" 



WILLIAM JAY. 



$fau>-8ork : 

PRINTED BY JOHN A. GRAY, 79 FULTON, COR. OF GOLD ST. 

1850. 



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Rev. Sir : 

In your late work, " Conscience and the Constitu- 
tion," you have by a coarse and clumsy device attempted 
to rebuke me in the name of my honored parent. The char- 
acter of your assault upon me is intended to convey the im- 
pression, without the responsibility of a direct assertion, that 
were John Jay now alive he would concur with you in sus- 
taining the course of Mr. Webster, and in condemning the 
doctrine of the sinfulness of human bondage. I owe it to his 
memory, to save it from such a stigma. 

You refrain from quoting the " declarations," by which, as 
you assert, I " degrade and vilify " my own parent, and 
"hold him up to contempt." The justice which you deny 
me, I accord to you, and give the language on which I intend 
to comment : — 

" I could not help thinking more particularly on one great 
and good man, who took an active part in all the formative 
process of our General Government, and by his skill and wis- 
dom saved our new settlements from the horrors of Indian 
aggression. Every one will, of course, know that I speak of 
the illustrious John Jay. What if his portrait had been 
hanging in the hall where the Anti-slavery Society recently 
met under the presiding auspices of his descendant? Would 
it not have brought to every mind the recollection of what 
the Earl of Chatham said, when addressing a descendant 
1 



4 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 

(then in the House of Commons) of a noble ancestor, whose 
picture was in full view ? His words were, ' From the tap- 
estry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor looks 
down and frowns upon his degenerate offspring.' I must ex- 
cept, in my application of this declaration, the last two words. 
They should not be applied to such a man as the Hon. Will- 
iam Jay. But I may say : Would not his immortal ancestor 
have looked down with a mixture of sorrow and of frowning, 
on a descendant who could exhort his countrymen to disre- 
gard and trample under foot the Constitution which his father 
had so signally helped to establish ; and who could pour out 
an unrestrained torrent of vituperation upon Mr. Webster, 
who has taken up the Constitution where Mr. Jay's ancestor 
had left it, and stood ever since in the place of the latter as 
its defender and expounder ? How would that agitated and 
frowning face moreover have gathered blackness, when the 
presiding officer of that meeting went on to say, that Mr. 
Webster had not made his speech from any conviction of 
sentiment, but because the cotton merchants and manufac- 
turers of Boston demanded such views to be maintained, and 
these gentiy had of course given it their approbation ? This — 
all this — of such a man as Mr. Webster. And all this, too, 
of the Boston gentlemen who commended Mr. Webster's 
speech ! To one who knows them as well as I do, this is 
absolutely shocking. At all events, it is ungentlemanly ; it 
is passionate ; and what is more than all — it is absolutely 
false. To see the Hon. W. Jay presiding over such a meet- 
ing, and opening it with declarations which degrade and vil- 
ify his illustrious ancestor, and hold him up to contempt, 
forces from one the spontaneous exclamation : O quantum mu- 
tatus abillo /" P. 62. 

There is, sir, throughout your book, a freedom both of 
language and of censure, and a recklessness of consequences 
both to yourself and others, that bespeak at least great 
frankness. It is therefore singular, that in the above passage 
3<ou should shrink from applying to me the epithet of " de- 
generate offspring," — an epithet I most richly merit, if w r hat 
you say of me be true. Your disclaimer is not in keeping 



ON HON. JOHN JAY. 5 

either with your language, or with your usual apparent sin- 
cerity. 

You think the portrait of John Jay, at the late meeting, 
would have reminded all of the words you quote from Chat- 
ham. The reason why I presided over the Anti-slavery 
Society is, that now I am old, I do not depart from the way 
in which I w r as early trained by parental precept and ex;i tri- 
ple. The first Anti-slavery Society ever formed in New- 
York, assembled in 17S5, under "the presiding auspices" of 
John Jay. The first clause of the preamble to its constitu- 
tion contained the following affirmation : — 

" The benevolent Creator and Father of men having given 
to them all an equal right to life, liberty and property, no sover- 
eign power on earth can justly deprive them of either, but in 
conformity to impartial government and laws to which they 
have expressly or tacitly consented." 

Here, you perceive, sir, there is a recognition of a Power 
above every constitution and government on earth. And 
what inference was drawn from the asserted gift of the " be- 
nevolent Creator and Father of men"? — "It is therefore 
our duty, both as free citizens and Christians, not only to re- 
gard with compassion the injustice done to those among us 
who are held as slaves, but to endeavor by lawful ways and 
means to enable them to share equally with us in that civil 
and religious liberty with which an indulgent Providence 
has blessed these States, and to which our brethren are as 
much entitled as ourselves." You now discover, sir, 
that your denunciations against Abolitionists for their disre- 
gard for the laws of Moses, the precepts of Christ, and the 
teachings of the apostles, reach even the ancestor of him 
you have so ruthlessly assailed. 

On the 12th Nov., 1785, the Society ordered a reprim of 
2,000 copies of a certain pamphlet first published in 1770, and 
which in modern parlance would be described as " incendi- 
ary, inflammatory, and insurrectionary in the highest degree*" 
With the temerity and insolence still lingering among Aboli- 
tionists, it was dedicated " To the Honorable Members 
of the Continental Congress." I know not whether 



6 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 

the following extracts will most excite your astonishment or 
indignation: — 

" We naturally look to you in behalf of more than half a 
million of persons in these colonies, who are under such a 
degree of oppression and tyranny as to be wholly deprived 
of all civil and personal liberty, to which they have as good a 
right as any of their fellow-men, and are reduced to the most 
abject state of bondage and slavery, without any just cause. . . . 
It is observable that when the Swiss were engaged in their 
struggle for liberty, in which they so remarkably succeeded, 
they entered into the following public resolve : ' No Swiss 
shall take away anything by violence from another, neither 
in time of war, nor peace.' How reasonable and important 
is it, that we should at this time heartily enter into and thor- 
oughly execute such a resolution ? And that this implies the 
emancipation of all our African slaves, surely no one can 
doubt. . . . May you judge the poor of the people, save the chil- 
dren of the needy, relieve the oppressed, and deliver the 
spoiled out of the hands of the oppressor, and be the happy 
instruments of procuring and establishing universal liberty 
to white and black, to be transmitted down to the latest pos- 
terity." 

On reading the tract thus dedicated, one is almost tempted to 
pronounce it a forgery by some of the fanatical Abolitionists 
of the present day, so remarkably does it correspond in sen- 
timent and expression with their own writings. The follow- 
ing is like some of that plain talk which so grievously offends 
you : — " Why should the ministers of the gospel hold their 
peace, and not testify against this great and public iniquity ? 
How can they refuse to plead the cause of those oppressed 
poor against their cruel oppressor? They are commanded to 
lift up their voice and cry aloud, and show the people their 
sins. Have we not reason to fear many of them have 
offended Heaven by their silence, through fear of the masters 
who stand ready to make war against any one who attempts 
to deprive them of their slaves ; or because they themselves 
have slaves which they are not willing to give up? A number 
of churches in New-England have purged themselves of this 



ON HON. JOHN JAY. 7 

iniquity, and determined not to tolerate slavery. If all the 
churches in these United States would come to the same 
measure, and imitate the Friends, called Quakers, would 
they not act more like Christian churches than they now do ? " 

Abolitionists, we are told, are vituperative ; but this is no 
new thing; their fathers were so before them. "Though 
your horse, which had been stolen from' you, has passed 
through many hands, and been sold ten times, you think you 
have a right to demand and take him, in whosesoever hands 
you find him, without refunding a farthing of what he cost 
him ; and yet, though your negroes prove their right to them- 
selves, and constantly make a demand upon you to deliver 
them up, you refuse till they pay the full price you gave for 
them, because the civil law will not oblige you to do it. — ' Thou 
Hypocrite.' Luke xiii. 15." 

You affirm that " if Abolitionists are to be heard, God 
has sanctioned not only a positive evil, but one of the 
greatest of all crimes." P. 43. What think } r ou then, sir, 
of the blasphemy of John Jay and his associates, who dared 
to disseminate such doctrine as the following? — "If it be not 
a sin, an open, flagrant violation of all the rules of justice 
and humanity, to hold these slaves in bondage, it is folly to 
put ourselves to any trouble and expense to free them ; but 
if the contrary be true — if it be a sin of crimson dye, this 
reformation cannot be urged with too much zeal, nor at- 
tempted too soon, whatever difficulties are in the way." 

Abuse of "our Southern brethren" is one of the many 
crimes charged by you upon Abolitionists ; but you should 
recollect that the vice is hereditary. Here is some veiy 
old-fashioned abuse — contesting the plea that slave labor 
is indispensable in hot climates, the New-York Society 
say : — " There is not the least evidence of this, but 
much to the contrary. The truth is, most of the whites 
which are born in the Southern States, or the West Indies, 
are not educated to labor, but great part of them in idleness 
and intemperance. The blacks are introduced to do the work, 
and it is thought a disgrace for a white person to gel his living 
by labor. By this means the whites in general are vicious, and 



3 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 

all imbibe a haughty, tyrannical spirit by holding so many 
slaves, and many of them, rather a plague than a blessing to 
all about them." 

Not only did the Society publish this powerful Anti-slavery 
tract of 60 pages, but they also reprinted " An Address to 
the Owners of Slaves in the American Colonies." I 
have room for only one extract from this Address : — " You 
who are professors of religion, and yet the owners of slaves, 
are entreated well to consider how you must appear in the 
sight of God, and of all who view your conduct in a true 
light, while you attend your family and public devotions, and 
sit down from time to time at the table of the Lord. If your 
neighbor wrong you of a few shillings, you think him utterly 
unfit to attend that sacred ordinance with you : but what is 
this to the wrong you are doing to your brethren whom you 
are holding in slavery ! Should a man at Algiers have a 
number of your children his slaves, and should he by some 
means be converted, and become a professor of Christianity, 
would you not expect he would soon set your children at 
liberty ? " 

These two tracts were, by the order of the Society, sent 
to each member of Congress, together with the Constitution, 
and the names of the officers. You will be amazed, sir, at 
the audacious impudence of such a measure, and especially 
when you recollect that John Jay, under whose " presiding 
auspices" all this was done, was at the very moment holding, 
at the pleasure of Congress, the most important and I believe 
the most lucrative office in the Government. Yet strange as 
it may appear to you, and the present race of Northern poli- 
ticians, he was neither removed from office, nor rebuked for 
his fanaticism and irreligion. 

Mr. Jay was not a nominal President. In his official ca- 
pacity he corresponded with an Anti-slavery Society in 
France, and with another in England, and in his letter to the 
latter remarked, " We will cheerfully co-operate with you in 
endeavoring to procure advocates for the same cause in other 
countries." In this same letter he declared that it was un- 
doubtedly very inconsistent with the declarations of the United 



ON HON. JOHN JAY. 9 

States, " on the subject of human rights, to permit a single 
slave to be found within their jurisdiction," and added, " We 
confess the justice of your strictures on that head." And all 
this to Englishmen ! Certainly John Jay's patriotism was 
much on a par with that of modern Abolitionists. He con- 
tinued to occupy the chair of the Society till 1792, when he 
resigned it, on taking his seat on the bench, as Chief Justice 
of the United States. The elevation of an avowed Abolition- 
ist, and the President of an Anti-slavery Society, to such a 
station must excite your astonishment. To use your words 
in respect to his son, it was " absolutely shocking." The 
reason was, sir, that the servility of Northern politicians had 
not then, as at present, conferred on the slaveholders the 
power of excluding from office under the Federal Govern- 
ment every known advocate of the rights of man. 

During the Revolutionary War he wrote : " Till America 
comes into this measure," (gradual abolition,) "her prayers to 
Heaven for liberty will be impious ;" and at the same period, 
having occasion to draft a deed of manumission, he prefaced 
it with — " Whereas the children of men are by nature equally 
free, and cannot without injustice be either reduced to, or held 
in slavery." 

On the whole, sir, I natter myself that there are some 
minds to which my father's portrait at the late meeting would 
not have suggested the words, "degenerate offspring," when 
they beheld me following his example in presiding over an 
Anti-slavery Society, and using strong language in reference 
to human bondage. 

You are pleased to ask in reference to myself, " Would not 
his immortal ancestor have looked down with a mixture of 
sorrow and of frowning on a descendant who could exhort his 
countrymen to disregard and trample under foot the Constitu- 
tion which his father had so signally helped to establish V 
Your whole book bears ample testimony to the heedlessness 
with which it was written. The extreme irritation caused by 
the obloquy 3-ou had incurred by unadvisedly endorsisg the 
dubious morality of Mr. Webster's course, did not pennii you 
to weight he terms you employed, nor to consider the justice 



10 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 

of the denunciations you fulminated. The charge you prefer 
against me is founded on my printed Address ; yet it did not 
occur to you that it would be but fair to quote the exhortation to 
which you refer. Had you looked for it for the purpose of trans- 
ferring it to your pages, you would not have found it. I gave 
my reasons for believing the Mason and Webster bill of abomi- 
nations a gross violation of the Constitution, and I did exhort 
such of my hearers as regarded slavery a sin not to incur the 
guilt of that sin, by aiding in reducing a fugitive once more to 
bondage ; and I contended that, in all cases, it was our duty 
to obey what we believed to be the commands of God, in 
preference to the opposite commands of men. At the same 
time I reminded my hearers that, when we could not consci- 
entiously obey the laws of the land, Ave were bound to endure 
the penalties of our disobedience, without making any forcible 
resistance to their infliction. It is strange that a Christian 
divine, who had spent forty years in thestudy of the Bible, 
should controvert these great principles, or insult me for 
uttering them. Had my father, sir, listened to my address, 
he would have rejoiced in the evidence it afforded that his 
efforts to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord had not been wholly unavailing. As President of the 
New-York Society, he drafted a petition to the Legislature, 
praying for a law prohibiting the selling of slaves out of the 
State. The petition thus commenced : " Your memorialists 
being deeply affected by the situation of those who, though 
free by the laws of God, are held in slavery by the laws 
of this State." His name was placed at the head of this pe- 
tition, and was followed by one hundred and twenty-two more. 
Here was a declaration of one of the most offensive principles 
of the modern Abolitionists, — a principle which you, if I un- 
derstand your book, deem impious. It is because I regard a 
fugitive free by the laws of God, that I cannot aid in reducing 
him to slavery ; and because I refuse to join you and Mr. 
Webster in catching runaways, you pour upon me the vials of 
your indignant wrath. 

I feel little disposed, sir, to examine your arguments in be- 
half of slavery, since it is the strange peculiarity of your very 



ON HON". JOHN JAY. H 

queer book, that on building up and completing an argument 
you immediately knock it down. Abolitionists contend that 
American slavery is sinful. You are shocked at the reproach 
they thus cast upon the volume of inspiration and its Divine 
Author. To that blessed volume you call their attention, and 
introduce them to slaveholding patriarchs. You prove by 
arithmetical calculation that the Father of the Faithful owned, 
a gang of one thousand five hundred and ninety slaves. 
Well, did that justify American slavery? You answer, 
" What Christ has commanded us is our rule, and not what 
the patriarchs did, who lived when the light was just begin- 
ning to dawn." P. 26. So much for Abraham and his gang! 
Turning your back upon the patriarchs, you advance to Moses. 
You examine his laws, and triumphantly point to a statute 
which, as you suppose, authorizes the purchase of slaves from 
the neighboring nations. Well, does the former bondage of 
Syrian heathen justify the present bondage of African heathen 
and their descendants ? Again you answer : " None can rea- 
son from the case of the Jews — the one favored, pre-eminent, 
secluded nation — to the case of men who lived after the com- 
ing of Him who broke down the middle wall of partition be- 
tween Jews and Gentiles, proclaimed one common God and 
Father of all, one common Redeemer and Sanctifier ; that this 
God is no respecter of persons, and that he has made of one 
blood all the nations that dwell upon the face of the earth. I 
say, none can now crave liberty to purchase slaves of the Gen- 
tiles or Jews on the ground of Mosaic permission." P. 36. So 
much for Moses and his heathen slaves ! 

From the Old Testament you turn to the New, with an air 
of most perfect confidence, to demonstrate the lawfulness of 
slavery. Christ, you tell us, took no special cognizance of 
slavery, and if it were malum in se he cannot be free from " the 
imputation of gross neglect and abandonment of duty as a 
preacher of righteousness," p. 45. Paul and Peter expressly 
sanctioned slavery in their epistles, and the former sent back 
a runaway slave. " Paul's Christian conscience would not 
permit him to injure the vested rights of Philemon." Again, 
"The conscience of Paul sends back the fugitive without any 



12 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 

obligation at all on the ground of compact." P. 61. You mean 
Paul's ancestors had not formed a Constitution by which they 
mutually agreed to surrender fugitives. Well, does the course 
pursued by Christ and his apostles prove the righteousness of 
American slavery ? For the third time you give a most 
rational and satisfactory answer : "It" (American slavery) 
"is a glaring contradiction of the first and fundamental prin- 
ciple, not only of the Bible, which declares that all are of one 
blood, but of our Declaration of Independence, which avers 
that all men are born (created) with an inherent and inalien- 
able right to life, liberty, and property. As existing among 
us slavery has taken its worst form : it degrades men made 
in the image of their God and Redeemer into brute beasts, or 
(which makes them still lower) converts them into mere 
goods and chattels. In this form of slavery all the sacred, 
social relations of life are destroyed. Husband and wife, 
parent and child, brother and sister, are not known in law, 
nor protected nor recognized by it. In conformity with this, 
these relations are every day severed by some slave-dealers, 
without regard to the feelings of the wretched beings who are 
torn asunder, and all their parental, conjugal, and filial sym- 
pathies are the subject of scorn, if not derision. No inva- 
sion of human rights can be worse than this, — none more di- 
rectly opposed to the will of God inscribed upon the pages of 
the Scriptures, and on the very nature of mankind." P. 103. 
And thus you go on for about five pages, describing the horrors 
aiad abominations of slavery, and the licentiousness and 
wickedness in which it involves the whites. In short, the 
slave region is pretty much of a Pandemonium. There is 
one regulation which particularly excites your indignation, 
but which is however in perfect keeping with the place and 
the system : "In some of the States" (you might have said 
in almost every one) " the learning even to read is forbidden, 
thus contravening with a high hand the command of Heaven 
to search the Scriptures. In such case obedience to a human 
law is crime, it is treason against the majesty of Heaven." 
P. 104. Really, sir, had my father, as you imagined, frowned 



ON HON. JOHN JAY. 13 

upon me for maintaining the duty of disobeying a sinful law, 
I might have called upon you to plead my apology. 

And now, sir, if some poor wretch who had escaped from 
this bad place, where the body is tortured, the heart crushed, 
and the soul perishes for lack of knowledge, should be found 
in Massachusetts, even at Andover, that mount of vision, 
where Bibles are plenty, where schools are open, and where 
the servants of the Lord teach the true orthodox faith, would 
you seize him and thrust him back into the midst of the pol- 
lutions, the miseries, and the spiritual darkness you have de- 
scribed ? Certainly, — in the fullness of your gratitude you 
have publicly thanked Mr. Daniel Webster for recalling you 
to your constitutional duty. It would seem that it was by 
him, and not by Saint Paul, that you have been awakened to 
the duty of catching fugitives ; and now your conscience 
would not permit you to injure " the vested rights " of Bruin, 
or any other trafficker in human flesh. " The Constitution in 
respect to fugitives held to service or labor must be obeyed. 
It is useless to talk about conscience as setting it aside." P. 71. 
So the Constitution and Paul's respect for Philemon's vested 
rights leave you no discretion ; even Conscience may not in- 
terpose her veto. But — " I would not have upon my con- 
science the guilt of turning God's image, redeemed by the 
blood of his Son, and made free by the Lord Jesus Christ 
himself, into goods and chattels. I Mould not bring on my 
soul that guilt for ten thousand worlds." P. 117. Certainly, 
sir, there are, as you say, various kinds of consciences, and 
some of them have the oscillations of a pendulum. 

You have rendered any reply to your Scriptural arguments 
in behalf of slavery unnecessary ; but I am skeptical as to 
your asserted fact that St. Paul was a slave-catcher. You as- 
sume without evidence that the servant of Philemon was a 
slave. Without admitting this assumption, it is too favorable 
to my present purpose to be now questioned by me. Accord- 
ing to our Biblical chronology, the Epistle to Philemon was 
written A. D. 64, the year after Paul arrived in Rome, \\ bere 
he lived two whole years in his own hired house, and received 
all that came unto him. Among those attracted to his dwell- 



14 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 

ing by his preaching and conversation was a poor stranger. 
By some means the apostle discovered that his humble but 
attentive visitor was a runaway slave belonging to his friend 
Philemon at Colosse. What course under such circumstances 
would your conscience h^ive prompted you to take, had you 
been in the apostle's plaee ? It would have warned you not 
to "injure the vested rights" of your friend. Under this ad- 
monition you would have \nstantly sent for one of the Fugi- 
tivarii, a body of men at Rome whose profession it was to 
catch fugitive slaves, — a profession which, under the counte- 
nance of some eminent men in State and Church, may soon 
be introduced into Massachusetts, as it already is in the 
Southern States. The Fugitivarius, on being informed when 
the slave would probably next visit you, would be on the 
watch ; and, having seized him, would handcuff him and 
hurry him off to Colosse, and there receive the usual reward 
from the master. Not so St. Paul. He took the slave into his 
house, as seems intimated by the context, he harbored him, 
and refrained from giving Philemon any intelligence respect- 
ing him. He continued his instructions to this poor, ignorant 
slave, and was rewarded by his conversion. Having thus 
begotten him in his bonds, he loved him, and called him his 
son. His affection for the slave and his regard for the master 
made him desirous of re-uniting them, being persuaded that 
the happiness of both would thus be advanced. Formerly 
Philemon had been a loser by Onesimus, but now the new 
convert to Christ was in a capacity to be useful to his late 
master, as he was already to the apostle. He is, said St. 
Paul, "now profitable to thee and to me." How 'profitable*} 
Had St. Paul been making money by the labor of his slave- 
convert? He was profitable precisely in the same sense that 
St. Paul's friend would have been had he been at Rome. "I 
would have retained him, that in thy stead he might have 
ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel." The Chris- 
tian ministration of prayer and sympathy which Philemon 
would joyfully have rendered to the apostle, he was now him- 
self about to receive from his former slave. But, if Paul 
wished to retain his convert with him, why did he not do so ? 



ON HON. JOHN JAT. 15 

He tells his friend, " Without thy mind I would do nothing." 
That is, as you understand him, " Without your leave I would 
not injure your vested rights in your Christian chattel." Very 
different are the words of the apostle : " Without thy mind I 
would do nothing, that thy benefit should not be as it were of 
necessity, but willingly." The benefit here spoken of was 
obviously one to be conferred by Philemon, not received by 
him ; and the apostle, by restoring Onesimus, gives his friend 
the opportunity of conferring this benefit as a free-will offer- 
ing, instead of permitting it to be apparently extorted from 
him. No thanks to him that his slave was free at Rome ; let 
Onesimus return to Colosse, and then it will be seen that this 
benefit was not of necessity, but willingly. The letter con- 
tinues: "Perhaps he therefore departed for a season that thou 
shouldest receive him forever." St. Paul does not of course 
here refer to the motive of the slave in absconding, but to the 
reason why, in the course of Providence, he was permitted 
to abscond. "Possibly it was so ordered, that your servant 
should leave you for a season, that he might be re-united to 
you in the bonds of the gospel, in the life that is, and in that 
which is to come." You understand the apostle as here inti- 
mating that perhaps the slave was permitted to run away, in 
order that he might be taught at Rome not to run away a sec- 
ond time ! " This last phrase (for ever) has reference to the 
fact that Paul supposed that the sense of Christian obligation 
which was now entertained by Onesimus would prevent him 
from ever repeating his offense." P. 60. Most worthy object of 
providential interference ! Most extraordinary exegesis from a 
Doctor in Israel, and a teacher of a School of the Prophets ! 
You truly remark, that " Philemon, being an active Chris- 
tian, would in a moment have submitted to any command of 
Paul respecting Onesimus." And what was the command ? 
" Receive him, that is my own bowels, not now as a slave, but 
above a slave, a brother beloved. If thou count me there- 
fore as a partner, (of the grace of the gospel,) receive him as 
myself." And how, sir, was this slave " sent back"? Not 
in fetters, not in charge of officers, not bewailing his bitter 
fate, not cursing a religion which reduced him to the level of 

7 O O 



16 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 

a brute. No, sir ; he went voluntarily, joyfully, carrying with 
him apostolic orders for his immediate emancipation, and 
blessing God for his temporal as well as spiritual liberty in 
Christ Jesus. The letter to Philemon was not the only one 
intrusted to him. The apostle conferred on him the honor of 
making him the bearer of the epistle to the church at Colosse. 
In this epistle the late slave is introduced to the church as "a 
faithful and beloved brother," and the church is referred to 
him for particular intelligence respecting the cause of Christ 
in Rome. It is a tradition of the early church, that Onesi- 
mus became Bishop of Ephesus. 

Very little, sir, do you know of Abolitionists when you deem 
it consistent with truth and decency to affirm, " If the great 
apostle himself were to re-appear on earth, and come now in 
the midst of us, (Boston,) and preach the doctrine contained 
in his Epistles, he would unquestionably incur the danger of 
being mobbed." P. 54. I think it far more likely he would 
suffer the pains and penalties of the Webster and Mason bill 
for harboring fugitive slaves. When you shall give satisfac- 
tory assurances that you will "send back" fugitives in the 
same manner and on the same terms that St. Paul did ; when 
you shall induce them voluntarily to return to their masters, 
and their masters to receive them not as slaves, but as beloved 
brothers, and to treat them with the kindness due, I will not 
say to " Paul the aged," but even to an Andover Professor, I 
pledge myself that the Abolitionists throughout the whole 
country, not excepting your neighbors in Boston, will consign 
to your care every fugitive that may apply to them for succor. 

But the Constitution declares that fugitives shall be deliv- 
ered up, and you sneeringly exclaim, " Conscience violating a 
solemn compact!" Neither Abolitionists nor their fathers 
ever made a compact that private individuals should hunt 
slaves ; nor would such a compact have been binding on any 
who regarded its requisitions as sinful. You intimate that ob- 
stacles cannot lawfully be thrown in the way of the claimant 
ofafugitive. This is a modern opinion. Onthe2d June, 1795, 
the New-York Society appointed a Committee to wait upon all 
the printers in the city, to urge them to refuse to print ad- 



ON HON. JOHN JAY. 17 

vertisements for the recovery of runaway slaves. This was 
when New-York was a slave State, and the slave-catching 
law of 1793 in full force. But you have another and very 
curious argument in behalf of slave-catching. You ask, " Can 
we respect a conscience which puts the broad seal of disgrace 
and infamy on those immortal men and patriots who formed our 
Constitution, and who in all our States accepted and approved 
of it? And where now has conscience been these sixty years 
past? I am astounded at the rapid railroad progress of new 
discovery." P. G2. Or rather, sir, you are astounded that 
others should even approximate to the rapid railroad progress 
of your own discovery. Suffer me, sir, to ask a question at. 
least as pertinent as your own : Can we respect a conscience 
which puts the broad seal of disgrace not onl}* upon the pa- 
triots of the Revolution, but on the fathers and martyrs of the 
Church, by declaring that were they now alive and addicted to 
their former habits, they would one and all be unlit for Christian 
communion? Where now has "conscience been for centuries?" 
You will surely recollect } T our laborious argument in support of 
vour proposition — " It is a matter of expediency and 

DUTY FOR OUR CHURCHES NOT TO ADMIT MEMBERS IN FUTURE, 
EXCEPT ON THE GROUND OF TOTAL ABSTINENCE FROM THE 
USE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS, AND FROM ALL TRAFFIC IN 

them." — Stuart's Prize Essay, p. G3. You expressly inelude 
by name among intoxicating liquors, " Port, Madeira, Sherry, 
TenerifFe, Lisbon," and other wines. So it seems he who ha- 
bitually drinks a glass of wine after dinner is unworthy to 
show forth the Lord's death; while he who habitually buys 
and sells husbands, wives, and children, and uses their labor 
without wages, is freely admitted to the holy table, and often 
into the pulpit ! 

You are sure, sir, my father's " agitated and frowning coun- 
tenance would have gathered blackness" at hearing the re- 
marks which fell from his son in regard to Mr. Webster and 
the Boston gentlemen who commended his speech. Of 
another gentleman of irreproachable Christian character, how- 
ever much he may diflfer from you in his estimate ofMr. Web- 
ster, yori scruple not to assert that he "exhibits marked signs 
of preferring to reign in a certain bad place, rather than serve 



18 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 

in a good one." P. 64. It is with ill grace, sir, that a cler- 
gyman who has preached the gospel " more than forty-five 
years," and who nevertheless indulges himself in the use of 
such language, lectures a layman for freely expressing his 
opinion of the public conduct of a public man; even "of such 
a man as Mr. Webster." I would do dishonor to my father's 
memory could I for a moment admit the possibility, that he 
would have approved the tortuous course of that gentleman, 
a course so totally different from that which he himself pur- 
sued through life. 

Had Mr. Webster justified his sudden and extraordinary vio- 
lation of his repeated and energetic pledges in behalf of the Wil- 
mot Proviso by a change of his opinion respecting the constitu- 
tionality of the measure, he might have been commended for his 
manly frankness. But he admits no such change of opinion. 
He rests his justification on the discovery of a law of the earth's 
formation, which renders the existence of slavery on one foot of 
a territory twice as large as all France a physical ^impossibility ». 
The people living in the territory are utterly unconscious ofany 
such physical impossibility;* the slaveholders of the South 
deny the existence of any such law of nature, t nor has it ever 
been known or dreamed of in any portion of the four quarters of 
the globe. When Mr. Webster offers a pretended " law of phy- 
sical geography " and the "Asiatic scenery "J of New-Mexico 
and California as an apology for his perfidy to the cause of 
freedom, he offers, in my opinion, an insult not merely to the 
moral sense, but also to the common sense of mankind. 



* The people of New-Mexico petitioned Congress to be preserved from the es- 
tablishment of slavery, and the people of California in their Constitution have pro- 
hibited its introduction. 

\ A Convention consisting of delegates from the Slave States, recently assembled 
at Nashville. It resolved, "That California is peculiarly adapted for slave labor, 
and that if the tenure of slave property was by recognition of this kind secured in 
that part of the country south of 36° 30' it would in a short time form into one or 
more slaveholding States, to swell the number and power of those already in exist- 
ence." Mr. Webster extends the physical impossibility of slavery to California by 
name, as well as to NeAV-Mexico. 

t In 1840 it was computed there were 500,000 slaves in British India. A traffic 
was carried on in slaves by importing them by sea from the eastern coast of Africa 
into the East Lidies, and Arab dealers carried African slaves into Persia. — Adams's 
Letters to T. F. Buxton on Slavery in British India, p. 18. So it is possible for 
even negro slaves to breathe amid " Asiatic scenery:' 



ON HON. JOHN JAY. 19 

You assail me for reflecting on the " Boston gentlemen who 
commended Mr. Webster's speech." If you refer to the gen- 
tlemen who joined you in signing the thanksgiving letter, you 
are mistaken. I did not make one single allusion to them. 
I was speaking of the slave-catching bill for which Mr. Web- 
ster was to vote. My words were: " It is now a matter of 
cool New-England calculation. The cotton interest of Mas- 
sachusetts calls for it, and the gentry of Boston are cheering 
on their Senator in his strange and reckless course." I re- 
ferred to the cheers with which, as the papers informed us, his 
street harangue on slave-catching was received by his au- 
dience. No man born out of New-England has probably a 
higher respect than myself for the intelligence and virtue of 
her inhabitants. But human nature is, I suppose, the same 
in Massachusetts as elsewhere ; and you have yet much to 
learn of the character of your species, if you deny that pe- 
cuniary interests, real or imagined, have a powerful influ- 
ence on the political views of large bodies of men. 

You greatly mistake me, sir, if you suppose I have troubled 
you with this letter from any idea of 'self-defense. The passionate 
and indefinite virulence of your assault renders it wholly in- 
nocuous to myself; but you have attempted (I admit in a very 
awkward manner) to identify my father's principles and con- 
duct with the pro-slavery course of yourself and Mr. Web- 
ster. You think the sanction of his name would be conven- 
ient to both; In yielding to the promptings of filial duty, and 
rescuing my father's memory from the disgrace yon would 
attach to it, I may possibly have given some aid to a cause 
dear to my parent's heart, by exhibiting his own sentiments 
and conduct on the subject of slavery. You have moreover 
afforded me a convenient opportunity of exhibiting, by your 
own laborious (doits, the utter worthlessness of all Scriptural 
arguments in justification of American slavery, and the foul 
dishonor they cast upon the gospel of our ever blessed and 
adorable Redeemer. I cheerfully do you the justice to admit 
that your moral sense revolts against your Bible theory. But 
I beg you to reflect whether you are engaged in a wise and 
sale employment, and one becoming your position, when you 
labor to prove that the fountain whence we draw our knowl- 



20 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 

edge of God's holy will, is sending forth most bitter waters, 
and that the tree of life is bearing the apples of Sodom ? 

The very unceremonious manner with which you have been 
pleased to treat me, will I trust exc use a little freedom on my part. 
Permit me to use the frankness you have invited, in submit- 
ting a few plain truths for the consideration of yourself, and 
your Reverend associates in Andover and elsewhere, whose 
theology embraces the political morality illustrated by Mr. 
Webster, and that system of evangelical benevolence which 
is exemplified in American slavery and the delivery of fugi- 
tives. Laymen, from their more promiscuous intercourse with 
the world, have usually better opportunities than the clergy 
of marking the practical working of agencies and influences 
unfavorable to Christianity. You are probably aware that 
even religious men are too much inclined to expect a higher 
standard of moral excellence in the clergy than they are will- 
ing to prescribe lor themselves. The maxim that the world 
will love its own, is reversed in regard to such of the minis- 
ters of Christ as are supposed to belong to it. Hence in 
public estimation, the sacred character of a preacher of 
righteousness greatly aggravates every deviation from Chris- 
tian morality, whether of conduct or opinion, which may be 
imputed to him. No intelligent man, unbiased by interest or 
education, can pause in pronouncing such a system as Amer- 
ican slavery to be unjust and cruel. To deny this, is to deny 
that God has given to man the knowledge of good and evil, 
even in the lowest degree. But while multitudes are uncon- 
trolled in their own conduct by their conviction of the wicked- 
ness of slavery, that conviction necessarily influences, their 
opinion of him who, professing to be the messenger of Heaven, 
proclaims that this mighty wrong is sanctioned and allowed by 
a just and holy God. Such an announcement generally leads to 
one of two inferences : either that the preacher falsifies his mes- 
sage, or that a religion which outrages the moral sense of man- 
kind cannot be of divine origin. The first is the inference most 
usually drawn, and disgust with the preacher is the natural 
result. But unhappily, instances are not wanting in which 
the arguments fabricated from the Bible effect a lodgment in 
the mind, and excite, not as was intended hatred of abolition, 



ON HON. JOHN JAY. £1 

hut hatred of Christianity. Facts have come to my knowl- 
edge far too numerous to permit me to doubt for a moment, that 
the course pursued by many of our clergy in relation to caste 
and slavery, has shaken the faith of many weak Christians, 
and given a vast impulse to infidelity. There is, sir, great 
reason to fear that at the final account, the blood of souls will 
be found in the skirts of some who have proclaimed them- 
selves commissioned to sanctify the whip and the fetters of 
the slave, by first hanging them on the cross of the Re- 
deemer. 

Once more, sir, — there is not a miscreant in the street who 
insults and maltreats the negro, that does not know, if he 
knows anything of Christianity, that it is a religion intended 
for all, and that its Divine Author appeared in humble guise 
and associated freely with the poor, the lowly and the despised. 
Yet in the example and conduct of many a master in Israel 
may a sanction be found for the contumely, injustice and cru- 
elty which fall to the lot of an unhappy and persecuted peo- 
ple. In vain has the voice of inspiration declared that in the 
Church of Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision 
nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free. In 
vain have we been reminded from on high, "Ye are all one 
in Christ Jesus." Certain Reverend disciples of the lowly 
Redeemer scorn to be one with negroes, even in Christ Jesus, 
and hence with impious hands they build up the heathen bar- 
rier of caste, and insult in the very house of God all to whom 
the Almighty Father has seen fit in his sovereign pleasure to 
give a dark complexion. Not a few of these men are putting 
forth high pretensions to ministerial power and dignity. Epis- 
copalians have recently been told by one of their Bishops, that 
the clergy are "the representatives of Christ, who alone have the 
charge of the discipline of his Church, with power to remit and 
retain sins." Yet within a few weeks the majority of the 
clergy of a neighboring diocese, assembled in Convention, de- 
liberately refused a scat in the council of the Church to a 
brother representative of Christ, and equally with themselves 
a remitter and retainer of sins, solely because African blood 
flowed in his veins. 

Wc arc favored with sermons and addresses in abundance 



22 REPLY TO REV. KOSES STUART. 

on the importance of a learned ministry, and we are urged to 
give our money for the support of Theological Seminaries. 
Vet one of these Seminaries has practically declared that any 
preaching is good enough for negroes, by shutting its doors 
against the admission of colored candidates for holy orders. 

The experience of the present, as well as of past times, in- 
structs us that Christianity is so identified in the minds of 
many with the character of its teachers, that the delinquencies 
of the one unhappily afford to multitudes an apology for ques- 
tioning the authenticity of the other. If a woe be pronounced 
against him who offends even a little one who believes in 
Christ, surely the minister of the cross cannot be guiltless, 
when, yielding to political attachments, to the dictates of 
worldly policy, or the influence of unholy prejudice, he under- 
mines the faith of many, and gives great occasion to the ene- 
mies of the Lord to blaspheme. 

I am, Reverend Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

WILLIAM JAY. 

Bedford, '26th June, 1850. 



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